Comments on: ANOTHER COLOURED DINOSAUR – SO WHAT?

By: The Weird and Wonderful – 3 « Sam's Adventures

The Weird and Wonderful – 3 « Sam's Adventures — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 10:13:52 +0000

[...] have blogged about this, among them Ed Yong (1, 2), Matthew Cobb from the Uni of Manchester(1, 2) and Jerry Coyne (1, 2). Basically they all blog about the same two articles but the points made at [...]

By: Finch

Finch — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:14:23 +0000

I have never said that Anchiornis is not a dinosaur (Mayer). I just said that the title and many statements in the ms are too general and so convey the false, that is all dinosaurs had coloured feathers. Keep in mind that a Journal like Nature is read by million of uninformed and uncareful readers. And this is why we publish articles, I mean the aim of a scientific article is also to make all people informed about “true” things, and not “cosmetic” ones. Claiming that this is what humans like to hear (New England Bob) in order to justify the behaviour of many scientists is not “science”! This is not the correct way of “advancing knowledge”, but of advancing career!

By: NewEnglandBob

NewEnglandBob — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:03:41 +0000

“I refer to the hundreds of television channels and newspapers stressing this “incredible” discovery, tens and tens of blogs discussing this point. Nobody can deny that big journals like Nature or Science are more interested in “cosmetic” papers (Finch) than in really scientifically interesting results. ”

The media are whores when it comes to publishing what people like. Otherwise, how could one explain fashion news where some dumb looking piece of colored and cut cotton is displayed and oo-ed and ah-ed for an entire week and then on to the next. Humans are lazy and science makes them think. They want to be entertained (look, pretty colors, flashing lights!) for about three minutes before they get another beer.

By: Bex

Bex — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 12:52:45 +0000

Ok, it seems we need a clarification. I didn’t say it is NOT important. I wonder if … is this THAT important. It is not a black-or-white stuff. I mean … yes, we have another spot on the map of our knowledge (ekolog) and this is always good. And I am totally convinced that “advancing knowledge is worth it for its own sake” (Bob), and that dinosaurs are a very interesting biological model (Neil). But that’s not the point. When I ask “is this SO important?” I refer to the hundreds of television channels and newspapers stressing this “incredible” discovery, tens and tens of blogs discussing this point. Nobody can deny that big journals like Nature or Science are more interested in “cosmetic” papers (Finch) than in really scientifically interesting results. This paper could well have been published in a zoological or paleontological journal (a very good one, for sure) being the scientific information relevant, but as relevant are tens of papers every month. If we keep on supporting “cosmetic” science, society will never become aware of what science really is. The interpretation will be that science (zoology, in this case) is a tale, a nicely decorated curiosity aimed at filling a conversation during a tea-break. I think that this can be good on the short term (money, visibility) but more dangerous on the long (and cultural) term. Of course, it depends by one’s intentions!

By: Neil

Neil — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:23:21 +0000

Integument (skin, feathers, claws etc.) is an important avenue for adaptive evolutionary change since it interacts with the physical environment (abrasion, locomotion etc.) and serves important roles in inter- and intraspecific interactions. Understanding the biology of extinct dinosaur feathers (function, development, evolution) is reasonably interesting and important, partly due to the popularity of birds and dinosaurs and the inordinate attention paid to their evolutionary relationships, but also because these were (and are) successful, diverse organisms that have left a good enough fossil record to address questions that are normally beyond reach. I agree that what has been done so far doesn’t necessarily tell us that much conclusively but it does potentially open some avenues for future work. It would be premature to write it off as a blind alley already.

A bit of an aside, but there are lots of questions about the lifestyle and locomotory habits of Anchiornis that are just getting swept under the rug in all this as well.

By: Gregory C. Mayer

Gregory C. Mayer — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:34:56 +0000

Knowing the color of dinosaurs is really neat (“astonishingly mindblowing” as I put it at whyevolutionistrue.com), and it’s a nice extension of the range of phenomena subject to historical inference, but it isn’t real important in our understanding of dinosaurs. (The most important thing about Anchiornis is its age.) I take issue with Finch’s claim that it was “not scientific” to call Anchiornis a dinosaur. Anchiornis is a dinosaur, and there’s nothing wrong in calling it that. The authors of the color paper also call it a troodontid, maniraptoran, and theropod, and its also a reptile, amniote, tetrapod, vertebrate, etc. Only an especially uninformed and uncareful reader could think that the paper referred to Triceratops or Tyrannosaurus.

By: NewEnglandBob

NewEnglandBob — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 02:37:48 +0000

I like ekolog’s “no” paragraph – advancing knowledge is worth it for its own sake.

By: ekolog

ekolog — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 02:03:54 +0000

I would say yes and no. Yes, because it’s not hard to see an option in science, where you get an idea of a striking, colourful and imaginative picture and work on getting this attached to some article and published – because of Nature’s bias towards – in Bex words – tedious science.

No, because thanks to this, there is another white spot painted with colours on the map of our knowledge. When you get an option: do you want to know something more about an animal or not, I will always say yes, even when it involves colourful feathers!